I am many things. I am a wife, a (very new) stay-at-home-mom, a teacher, a cook, a crafter, and, most importantly, a child of God. You can expect to see some of the children's lessons I write for our church, recipes, parenting and marriage book reviews, crafts, some inspiration from whatever Bible study I am doing and a little of what is going on in my life on this blog. As our family grows and matures, I'm sure that this blog will too. So follow along as I embark on this new adventure, traveling along the path that the Lord has set before me.

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Category Archives: Crafts

The Reveal!

If you read the Grace Notes from last Thursday, you may have seen this picture as a little teaser:

So, would you like to know what I made? I made a stole for my Dad’s birthday. Since I have crafted in adulthood, I haven’t been able to make anything for my Dad; so I was super excited when I came up with this idea. First, I had to pick a crochet pattern I liked.

Then, it took me an atrociously long time to find a fabric I liked to go wit the Puritan Square (I didn’t want to use the standard brocade, because I thought it would over power the doily). I finally settled on a white, simply textured satin for the body of the stole and a matching champagne to back the doilies (plus fringe and stiff batting).

I didn’t use a pattern, but I did use a borrowed stole to help me get the correct dimensions (when finished, it measured about 91 inches, including the tassel). I hand pieced the blocks of satin and doilies.

I ironed the seams flat, cut out the backing and the batting, pinned it all together, and wa-la!

Click to enlarge the picture

Most stoles have a cross at the neck, so I {shakily} added a Jerusalem cross, and I added a little message to the back of the stole.

I have have a few ideas on how to improve this if I were to do it again (and I would love to, by the way!), namely, working on my stitching. I was so excited to give this to my Dad today.

Welcome to Pinterest Tuesdays were I will post about things that I have either tried from Pinterest or things that are Pinterest-worthy. *Button to come soon!*This is The Table. Many of my house guests are familiar with The Table, and a few have contributed to the never ending paint job. It’s going to be awesome when it is done, but I’ll also be really glad when it’s done.

I really wanted a pretty mosaic table for our back patio so that we could enjoy a few meals in the nice weather, but they were either too small or way too expensive. So, I came up with a DIY project. Continue reading →

Christmas Craft!

Crafts featured over the next few weeks will probably be Christmas gifts (ones that people already know that they are getting because they had to be a part of the decision making). There are two people, my Dad and my husband, who don’t know what they are getting and I am the most excited about those, but you will have to wait until after Christmas to see those!

Other than a massive blanket that made a very late Christmas present last year and a few baby blankets, I’ve been spending a lot of time experimenting with crochet thread. I’ve always thought that antique doilies and shawls are so pretty, and so I ventured into the hand-cramping, tiny needlework of thread crochet. Check out the second picture to see how small my hook is. Continue reading →

A while ago, I wrote a post on some shoes my sister painted and was so excited that she was going to paint some for me too. I only gave her the guideline of “cherry blossoms” and look what she did!

The Bobs she painted for herself are made of canvas, but mine are a linen with gold threads. I think they turned out really well with paint. Could you believe that I have worn these for about three months? None of the acrylic has chipped or faded (even through a couple rainy days), but I wanted to get some good pictures to post before I slip in mud or something.

Note, this was taken after playing paint Twister, not painting shoes. 🙂

What do you think? Give my sister some love! She doesn’t think that she could charge much for these works of art. I think that she could have an amazing Etsy site, but I can also understand that making things for other people can kill creative joy. For now, I will just encourage all manner of handmade gifts from my sister. She’s just awesome.

This was the best picture I could get of my phone, so please excuse the backwardness of it. <—Thank you WP for allowing me to flip the picture!

I really did not want a new phone, but my last one was on the fritz! I couldn’t hang up which caused me to leave really long voice mails, and it would randomly send text messages to people with random letters.

So, new phone, new case, etc. I try to make it a goal to go as cheap as possible with accessories, but I was a little envious of the cute monogrammed Otterbox covers. BUT a pencil, permanent marker, and Word fonts can magically transform the cheap case – yay!

I was going to post on the Bobs my sister painted for me, but my camera died – look for that post soon! If you haven’t already seen my sister’s handiwork, go check out a sample here.

More headbands for the nearly bald baby

If you knew me when I was pregnant, you know that I had some serious third-trimester-angsty crafting. This was right after I stopped working and Joey limited what I was allowed to clean. I was really bored and had a lot of energy. In the course of two days I made four crocheted beanies and a pair of shoes for El.

Sadly, none of these fit. When she was a newborn, they were too big (except for the white one, which was too small). Now they are either too small or oddly shaped. Fail. At least I was entertained for two days. I could not, however, waste those cute over-sized buttons or those yellow flowers. So, I made some more headbands! Continue reading →

I’m crafting again!

Maybe my spontaneous craftiness was inspired by these beautiful {real} roses from my husband. Or I could have been inspired to continue with paper crafts after making 20 origami boxes for this lesson. Of course, crafting 24 paper roses could have just been aroused by missing my little sister who is away at college now (she loves yellow roses). Anyway, for whatever reason, I came home from church on Sunday and Googled “make paper rose”, and this tutorial popped up! Here’s my take on the project.

It was super easy! I could not roll mine like Dozi, but I rolled mine tightly around a crochet hook and let it unravel into a rose (which I then secured with a few glue dots). This is about as close to quilling as I will ever get. If you want to see some amazing works of paper art, go here. Continue reading →